Barbara isn't Dying

Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, comfortable confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But, when one morning she can't -or won't! -get up from bed anymore, everything changes.With biting humour and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and househusband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter's rough facade begins to crumble, and with it his old certainties about his life and family.

About the author

Alina Bronksy is the author of Broken Glass Park (Europa, 2010); The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (Europa, 2011), named a Best Book of 2011 by The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Publishers Weekly; Just Call Me Superhero (Europa, 2014), Baba Dunja's Last Love (Europa, 2016), and My Grandmother's Braid (Europa, 2021). Born in Yekaterinburg, an industrial town at the foot of the Ural Mountains in central Russia, Bronsky now lives in Berlin.

Product details

• Authors: Alina Bronsky, Bronsky Alina
• Assisted by: Mohr Tim (Translation)
• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 17.07.2025
• EAN: 9781787705814
• ISBN: 978-1-78770-581-4
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 200 mm x 10 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Family Life / Marriage & Divorce, FICTION / World Literature / Germany / 21st Century, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, FICTION / Humorous / Dark Humor